1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet printing cloth and an ink-jet printing process. In particular, this invention relates to an ink-jet printing cloth which is composed mainly of silk fibers having good stability with time, and is good in stability to coloring in high-temperature fixing and capable of providing highly colored, bright and fine patterns with high color yield upon formation of a print image by an ink-jet system, and an ink-jet printing process and a production process of a print using such a cloth.
2. Related Background Art
At present, textile printing is principally conducted by screen printing or roller printing. Both methods requires to form a plate, and are hence unfit for multi-kind small-quantity production and difficult to quickly cope with the fashion of the day. Therefore, there has recently been a demand for development of an electronic printing system making no use of any plate. In compliance with this demand, many textile printing processes according to ink-jet recording have been proposed. Various fields expect much from such textile printing processes even in dyeing on cloths composed mainly of silk.
Ink-jet printing cloths composed mainly of silk and used in such a system are required to have the following performance characteristics:
(1) being colored with an ink to a sufficient color depth;
(2) being high in color yield of ink;
(3) having no influence on mechanical properties and coloring properties during storage after a pretreatment;
(4) causing little irregular bleeding of inks on the cloth;
(5) being excellent in feedability in apparatus; and
(6) being good in stability to coloring in high-temperature fixing.
In ink-jet printing on cloths composed mainly of silk fibers, a system using inks containing an acid dye as a dye has heretofore been a mainstream.
However, textile printing with reactive dyes is also required in a dyeing field of which high concentration and wet color fastness are required. An alkaline substance is indispensable for the use of the reactive dyes. When the silk fibers are brought into contact with an alkali for a long period of time, their mechanical strength is lowered, and problems of deteriorated hand and coloring irregularity are offered. It is therefore essential to minutely control the conditions of the application of the alkali. Any measure for solving these problems has not been yet disclosed to date.
Detailed investigations have also been made on the influence of heating means. More specifically, fixing conditions of 80xc2x0 C. to 102xc2x0 C. or so do not offer a very serious problem. If a fixing temperature is preset to conditions exceeding 103xc2x0 C. to enhance dyeing efficiency, however, silk fibers offers a problem of their own that the color yield is rapidly lowered unlike the case of other reactive dye-dyeable fibers typified by cellulose fibers.
Against this problem of lowered color yield, a measure on cellulose fiber that an antireductant is added together with an alkaline substance with a view toward preventing coloring ability from lowering due to the reductive decomposition of dyes upon steaming is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-299588. The cause of deteriorating the coloring ability in the silk fibers is different from that in the cellulose fibers and considered to be attributable to hydrolysis attendant upon change in coloring temperature rather than the reductive decomposition of dyes. It is therefore necessary to propose a measure for overcoming this problem by an absolutely different idea.
As described above, means capable of satisfying the above individual performance characteristics to some extent have been able to be found in the prior art. However, there have not been yet known under the circumstances any ink-jet printing cloth composed mainly of silk and any ink-jet printing process, which can satisfy all the above-mentioned performance characteristics at the same time, solve such a series of problems and provide the highest-quality image.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an ink-jet printing cloth and an ink-jet printing process, which satisfies, at the same time, the above-described general problems involved in the conventional ink-jet printing cloths, i.e., a problem of image that a bright print free of ink bleeding and high in color depth is provided, a problem of quality that coloring ability in high-temperature fixing is stable, a problem of cost that the color yield of ink is good, a problem of operating characteristics or properties such as storage stability and feedability in apparatus of treated cloth, etc.
The above object can be achieved by the present invention described below.
According to the present invention, there is thus provided an ink-jet printing cloth which is dyed with inks containing a reactive dye and is composed mainly of silk fibers, wherein the cloth contains an alkaline substance in an amount of 0.01 to 0.8% by weight based on the dry weight of the cloth.
According to the present invention, there is also provided an ink-jet printing cloth which is dyed with inks containing a reactive dye and is composed mainly of silk fibers, wherein the cloth contains an alkaline substance in an amount not less than 0.8% by weight based on the dry weight of the cloth, and the surface pH of the cloth is adjusted to 8.2 or lower.
According to the present invention, there is further provided an ink-jet printing process comprising applying inks containing a reactive dye to a cloth, wherein said cloth is one of the ink-jet printing cloths described above, and a dyeing treatment is carried out at 103xc2x0 C. or higher at least after the application of the inks to the cloth, followed by a washing treatment.
According to the present invention, there is still further provided a process for producing a print, comprising applying inks containing a reactive dye to a cloth by an ink-jet system, wherein said cloth is one of the ink-jet printing cloths described above, and a dyeing treatment is carried out at 103xc2x0 C. or higher at least after the application of the inks to the cloth, followed by a washing treatment.